DEEP IMPACT ===========
Produced by: Zanuck/Brown Productions, DreamWorks SKG, and
Paramount Pictures
Directed by: Mimi Leder
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for disaster theme and some violence
Running time: 115 min.
Released: May 15, 1998 (US)
Major cast: Alexander Baluyev, James Cromwell, Robert Duvall,
Ron Eldard, Jon Favreau, Morgan Freeman, Tea Leoni,
Mary McCormack, Vanessa Redgrave, Maximilian Schell,
Dougray Scott, Leelee Sobieski, Blair Underwood,
Elijah Wood.
Basic plot: Overabundance of "main characters" tries to resolve
their relationships while an Earth-bound comet the
size of Manhattan threatens global extinction.
As disaster movies go, this made-for TV movie wasn't bad at all. There is one minor problem however: Someone decided to release this film in movie theaters.
The film starts with young Leo Biederman (Wood) discovering an unknown object in the sky during an astronomy club outing. A year later, up-and-coming MSNBC reporter Jenny Lerner (Leoni) thinks she unearths a big sexual scandal in the White House involving cabinet member Alan Rittenhouse (played all-too-briefly by Cromwell), who resigns abruptly over what Lerner believes is a woman named "Ellie."
Lerner soon learns the story is bigger than a mere affair when she is whisked off by the men in black to meet with the president. In an amusing scene, Lerner and President Beck (Freeman) conduct a tango of words as Lerner realizes "ELE" (Extinction-Level Event) is no sex scandal.
The president agrees to hold a press conference to inform the public about a Manhattan-sized comet zooming toward Earth. Everything after that involves every cast member having a teary-eyed moment as they say good-bye to their loved ones, although I suppose I would be cutting this review short if I didn't give you a bit more information.
The US and Russian governments have crafted in a record-breaking eight months "Messiah," a built-in-outer-space ship that takes six NASA astronauts, including Duvall's Spurgeon "Fish" Tanner (who the rest of the crew thinks was brought on by the Powers That Be for PR purposes) to the comet to detonate nuclear bombs under its surface and render it into small pieces and thus harmless.
However you guess correctly that this plan does not quite work or else you wouldn't get to see the World Trade Center tsunamied as you saw in the movie trailer.
This film tries to be _Titanic_ and _the Love Boat_ together, and it simply can't do it in its limited running time. Three-hour-long _Titanic_ was a "disaster movie" that had enough time to go through the disaster AND allow audiences to sympathize with its two main characters.
In _Deep Impact_, a similar attempt is made instead with no less than *three* relationship subplots, and it is simply not possible. Leder attempts to manipulate the audience into tears through the straightforward technique of showing close-ups of loved ones hugging and crying with each other, which doesn't work because the characters are given so little time or opportunity to develop.
The bottom line in a disaster movie however, is the actual disaster. Unfortunately even with the creative special effects of ILM (Industrial Light and Magic), there is very little impact on the audience. In fact, you see a third of the disaster's special effects in the movie trailer.
Had the movie focused on one relationship and shown realistic scenes of mobbing, looting, panicking and mass violence, _and_ delivered with massive special effects (that last more than five minutes), this would have turned out to be theatrically satisfying. As it is, even with the president declaring martial law using the US Armed Forces, not one soldier fires his M16; not one civilian is shown taking advantage of his Fourth Amendment rights; not one person is shown committing a crime. In fact, there are no "bad guys" in this movie at all.
Probably saddest of all is the utter underutilization of some excellent actors. Both Duvall and Freeman do well acting their stereotypes as they have some decent air time. However it is truly unfortunate that Schell, Redgrave and Cromwell are little more than walk-ons when we know they could really shine in their own spotlights.
Worth seeing as a TV mini-series or with a discounted matinee ticket only, I suggest you stay home until the next big disaster movie (_Godzilla_) is out in theaters in a few weeks. At least that movie seems to be more focused on the disaster itself and not on the mediocre, underdeveloped character relationships.
--
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews